One True Love
by Roses of Sharon
Summary: Scarlett O’Hara has only ever loved once. But some days – all days – she dreams of maybe once-upon-a-time loving someone else. Scarlett, Rhett. Bookverse.


Scarlett O'Hara has only ever loved one – and only one – thing, and this is what she tells herself when she is sitting alone in the remains of her manor – in the dining room, bare of her mother's curtains, its thick carpet trod to pieces

Disclaimer: I do not own _Gone With the Wind_.

Summary: Scarlett O'Hara has only ever loved once. But some days – all days – she dreams of maybe once-upon-a-time loving someone else.

One True Love

Scarlett O'Hara has only ever loved one – and only one – thing, and this is what she tells herself when she is sitting alone in the remains of her manor – in the dining room, bare of her mother's curtains, its thick carpet trod to pieces.

Tara.

It is her home, where her house is now burned; it is her mother and her father, where now both are dead.

It is the only place she has left, and so she pours - has always poured – all her love and affection and effort into building it. She has given everything to the red clay dirt, to the fields of white cotton.

That is how it is, and she will give anything for Tara, give anything to Tara.

She will ruin herself for Tara – she will work her beautiful soft hands on the plow, she will milk the cows despite her terrible fear of them. She will scrub floors and wash windows and shine glasses and _work_.

She will do everything she was taught was not for her to do, and she will do it gladly, because it is for Tara.

Anything, everything… for Tara, it is worth it.

Even giving up the one other thing – man – she might ever have loved.

(Rhett, she thinks, is not too large a sacrifice for this plot land.)

Atlanta was beautiful, and she relives it in her memory – the trees and the buildings and the people, the silks and velvets and lace, the sparkling diamonds and glittering gold. And then she stands and brushes her work-worn hands over her worn dress and does what she has to, and much more besides.

One day, she vows, one day she will have the money to pay for the workers that will nourish Tara, that will feed Tara and treat Tara as she deserves.

Until that day, she must make do with her four slaves-who-are-not and three siblings and three children and hope for more.

Ashley is gone, and she mourns him – not as much as she once might have, for he is nothing to her now, only a memory of a false dream that was shattered before it was realized.

Melanie – dear, sweet Melly – is gone, and she mourns her in every moment of every day. Melly, who she never truly appreciated, never truly saw until it was far too late.

And Rhett is gone, and she mourns him in her heart every single day, every single night. She sees him in her dreams – for she knows who it is in her nightmares, now – and every night she runs to him, strives for him, and does not reach him.

She is used to it, now – used to failure and disappointed and waking with tear stains on her pillow and tear tracks on her face and getting up anyways, washing her face in the cold water she had fetched herself the day before, and preparing for another day of survival.

Scarlett O'Hara tells herself that she has only ever needed, wanted, loved Tara – but a southern lady is allowed to lie, if only to herself.

(She knows she has loved more; moreover, she knows who else she has loved.)

But once in a while, in a moment of weakness, she allows herself to dream and think and hope for that someone else she might have loved – knows she loved, swears not to love anymore.

She dreams that he will come back, that he will sweep her into his strong arms and hold her against his muscled chest and whisper sweetly into her ear. She dreams that he will be her security, her lighthouse, her hope in desperate times – that he will protect her.

Because Scarlett is strong, but only because she has to be.

Because Scarlett can fend for herself, but doesn't always want to.

Because Scarlett really does need someone – a man, a real man – to be there for her.

Maybe it is habit, and maybe it is a foolish desire, but it is what it is, and she wantsneedshopesfor him so, so badly.

Once in a while, once in a very long while, she walks past the stream and thinks about throwing herself in – of breathing in that sweet, life-giving water and never ever looking back at this harsh world again.

But Tara needs her, and Scarlett has always, always been a survivor, always done whatever she could to survive, and who is she to throw this all away?

And so she stays, and silently she dreams.


End file.
